


Monochrome Frame

by Incorporeal_Ice



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Afterlife, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26491237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incorporeal_Ice/pseuds/Incorporeal_Ice
Summary: Sometimes, memories of happier days can make the pain worse.
Relationships: Orphaner Dualscar/The Signless | The Sufferer
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Monochrome Frame

You find yourself wide eyed as you step forward into the scene before you, almost in a daze. Your pulse is suddenly racing when you realize what you’re seeing, and beneath the anticipation you’re feeling is an unbearably icy sense of dread that you hate yourself for ignoring, your feet carrying you forward into a glimpse of the past you aren’t even sure you want to see.

Before you know it, your footsteps begin to echo loudly around you as the ground changes from whatever previously mundane dreamscape you occupied yourself in, to wood. The wood of a dock at a cargo pier. The sound stirs up memories within you, ones that make your heart begin to ache, in a way that makes you wonder why you’re even here right now.

You didn’t come here for just any reason. This place, was important. Special.

Gone.

The gentle to and fro of the steady tides beneath the pier reaches your ears, and you clench a hand tightly over your chest to keep hot tears from escaping the corners of your eyes.

Everything is exactly as you remember, and yet, so incredibly wrong.

You had come here dozens of times, in your life. You wish you could have said more times than you remember, but your time was fleeting and you couldn’t afford to forget anything.

Now, you want to forget everything.

It’s so **quiet.** You had always been so critically aware of the noise around you, especially when you came here. Even after you felt like you had gotten used to clandestine meetings under the dusk, your ears couldn’t help but listen closely, watching out for breaks in the monotonous labor of the deckhands and the sailors. For them, it was always just another day of work. But you, you counted down to the hour to the moment that you would be able to visit this place.

Even after several years, you were always at least a little worried they would notice you.

Both of you.

Now, it’s quiet. Empty.

Lifeless.

The only thing moving, the only thing breathing here, is the uncaring ocean beneath your feet.

As white eyes sweep over the empty pier out to the edge of the docks, you feel yourself starting to break down, the pangs in your heart becoming near unbearable, now, and you just cannot understand why you stumbled into the scene like this. 

You weren’t supposed to come here for just any reason.

You came here for a wide smile and bright violet eyes. For a deep, soothing voice, and the sure embrace of strong, cold arms.

You came here to pretend, to play at happiness, normalcy—to be selfish.

Now, there’s nothing. The air around you is painfully empty and chilled, making you reflexively hold yourself as you wish with all you have that someone else could do it for you again, even just once more.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. You cherished every visit, every moment, every step you took to and in this place.

This is wrong.

There’s nothing here. _He’s_ not here.

Warm tears finally begin running down your frigid cheeks, watery eyes looking out into the sea before you. You hold yourself tighter, choking back tense sobs if only for your own sake.

Your chest squeezes with a stabbing pain, wishing, longing to stretch the boards of the dock out further, as if the mists of the ocean will clear to reveal a miracle for you, a ship that was home to the love that kept you going for all those years.

You lower yourself to your knees, and as your emotions start to overcome you, you wonder if perhaps, this is a punishment of sorts. You have no idea what this life after death actually is, or why you ended up in it. But the only rhyme or reason you can fathom to happening upon a scene like this, is to torture you.

Torture you for going against all of your better judgement, for rushing into a naïve, doomed love, and taking him down with you into your inevitable demise. Him, and everyone else you couldn’t bring yourself to push away, despite knowing what your fate would be.

A fate that you failed for. Died for.

And now, you’re alone, and you left him behind.

As you kneel by yourself, teardrops silently falling onto the warped wood of the boardwalk, you try to focus on the steady sound of the waves below, and you find yourself wondering if maybe, the cold grip of the sea wrapping around you would feel anything like his bygone embrace. 

**Author's Note:**

> Reupload from a couple years ago. My last little piece I was actually pleased with, so I decided to post it again on a whim.


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